Romancing Tommy Gabrini (28 page)

Then
he took out a suit for his first round of meetings, and got in the shower.
 

Within
a few minutes of his exit into the shower, the door of his hotel suite was
opened by a maid, and then ShoShawna Shanks stepped in.
 
She paid the maid and then closed and locked
the door.
 
She could hear the water
running, and could just imagine it running down that sinewy body of
Tommy’s.
 

And
then she smiled.
 
And began removing her
clothes.

Grace
sat in the quiet living room at her mother’s home in Happy Valley, Oregon.
 
Although her two younger stepsisters were
also in the room, silence permeated the walls like a human entity.
 
Grace had just arrived an hour ago, but the
burden of being there was so great that it felt like she’d been there for days.

Nancy
Morton, her mother, a small, attractive woman with long brown hair and big brown
eyes, was never much of a small-talker, and today was no exception.
 
But she did attempt to ask Grace how she’d
been and how her job was going and if Jilly was still self-centered as ever.
 
But when the conversation shifted to Ralph,
and how wonderful a husband and, in the case of the stepsisters, a father he
had been, her mother didn’t even attempt to include Grace in their
reminiscences.
 

“I
know one person who’s happy he’s gone,” Ashley, one of Grace’s stepsisters,
said.

Grace
looked at her.
 
“That’s not fair,
Ashley,” she said.

“It
is fair!” Ashley thundered back.
 
“You
hated my father!”

“He
hated me, and I was just a child.
 
How
did you think I was going to feel about him?”

“Why
are you here?” asked Tamara, her other stepsister.

“To
support my mother.”

“She
has us, the people who loved her husband.
 
She doesn’t need your support.”

Grace
started to say that she has it, whether she needed it or not, but she held her
peace.
 
These people were genuinely
grieving.
 
They had a right to their
opinion.
 
But she also had a right to
support her mother, and she was staying right there and supporting her.

At
the Ambrose hotel in Sydney, Tommy turned off the tap inside the shower and
stepped out.
 
He was thinking about his
next meeting, and if he was going to accept the offer on the table.
  
He had capital in three businesses in
Australia, but this offer for a fourth enterprise was too tempting to
dismiss.
 
But if he low-balled them he also
knew it could blow up in his face.
 
Negotiations had to proceed delicately.
 
Or, he reasoned, they would more than likely walk.

As
soon as he opened the stall and stepped out, thinking about that offer, he
reached for the towel on the rack.
 
But
he stopped in his tracks when he realized he was not alone.
 
To his amazement, ShoShawna was sitting in a
wing chair in the middle of the large bathroom, naked as a jaybird, one of her
long legs flapped over the arm of the chair, the other leg swinging down.
 
A tinted wine glass was in her hand.

Tommy
frowned.
 
“What are you doing here, Shawnie?”

But
ShoShawna only smiled.
 
“You know you
want some,” she said as she slowly opened her legs wider, revealing a pussy
Tommy knew so well.
 
“So come on, big
boy.
 
Put that massive rod into this hot
pussy and fuck me shitless.
 
I need it
bad, and from the look in your eyes, you want it even worse.
 
So just do it.”

Tommy’s
heart was pounding.
 
His dick was
dangling right in front of a pussy that was his for the taking.
 
A pussy he used to crave.
 
Right there.
 
In front of him.

But
he’d met Grace since last they met and now ShoShawna and her tricks seemed old
and tired and didn’t turn him on one bit.
 
He stood amazed that he once even considered making a selfish bitch like
her his wife.
 
All she wanted was his
dick.
 
That may have been all she ever
wanted.

He
grabbed her by the arm, startling her, and hoisted her from her seat.

“What
the fuck is wrong with you?” she was yelling.
 
But Tommy began hurrying her out of the bathroom, her naked ass shaking
like Jell-O as he dragged her.
  
“You’re hurting
me!” she kept yelling.
 
“Let me go, you
asshole!
 
Let me go!”

But
Tommy wasn’t about to let her go.
 
He
couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore.
  
All of that pain she caused him, year in and year out and he kept
letting her back.
 
But not anymore.
 
He dragged her into the bedroom, as she
continued to scream and demand release.
 
He began picking up her discarded clothes and slamming them against her
chest.

“Seriously,
Tommy?” she asked as she held onto her clothes, and her glass of wine, as he
continually shoved clothes at her.
 
“This
is how you’re going to treat me?
 
This is
how you’re going to motherfucking treat me?
 
Seriously?”

But
Tommy wasn’t thinking about her.
 
He
began dragging her out of the bedroom and into the living room of his
suite.
 
And she kept on complaining.

“What
she got that I don’t have?
 
Hun,
Tommy?
 
What does that bitch have?
 
You’re going to give up fucking this to fuck
some dumb-ass secretary who ain’t even all that pretty?”

Tommy
slung her against the door of his suite, her naked breast heaving when her body
slammed hard.

“You
hear me, Shanks, and hear me well,” Tommy said, his eyes wild with fury.
 
“I don’t care if I was fucking a chimpanzee,
it’s none of your
got
damn
business.
 
I don’t want you.
 
I’m not interested in fucking you ever
again.
 
I told you I’ve moved on with my
life, so you may as well move on with yours.
 
I’m done.
 
You hear me?
 
I’m done gotdammit!
 
So leave me the hell alone!”

But
it was as if he hadn’t said a word.
 
ShoShawna reverted back to form.
 
“You’re giving me, me, Shawnie, up for
her
?” she continued asking.
 
“For
her
?
 
Seriously, Tommy?
 
You expect me to believe that you’re willing
to give up all of this for
her
?
 
Seriously?
 
Seriously?”

Tommy
opened the door of his suite and practically threw her naked body outside, and
her shoes behind her, and then he slammed that door in her still complaining
face, more than proving just how
seriously
serious he really was.

And
as dramatic it was when she was in his suite making her case, it was as silent
and un-dramatic in the hallway outside of that suite.

ShoShawna
still clutched her clothes and her wineglass as she leaned against that door,
fury now in her own eyes.
 
The same maid
who had let her in, was now at the end of the hall, her cleaning cart in front
of her, staring at her.

“What
the fuck you’re looking at?” ShoShawna yelled, and then began putting on her
clothes.
 

And
she was determined now.
 
Because nobody,
especially not that asshole Tommy Gabrini, was going to humiliate her like this
and expect no retribution.

Yeah, Tommy
, she said as she put back on her
clothes,
you want me to leave you alone
now
.
 
You couldn’t live without me, now you want me to leave you alone
.
 
She looked into her wineglass and grabbed the
tiny camera that had been wedged to it, and then she allowed the glass and its
liquid contents to fall to the corridor’s carpet.
 

I’ll leave you alone, all right
, she thought as the glass fell.
 
But not
before you leave that secretary alone
.
 
Not a second before then
.
 

Then
she pocketed her camera, as if that was her purpose all along, and left the
hall.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The
limousine stopped in front of the modest home in Happy Valley and the ladies on
the porch took notice.
 
Especially when
the chauffeur opened the passenger door and a tall, white, and, if they had to
say so themselves, very attractive man stepped out.

Tommy
reached back into the car, grabbed his suit coat, and put it on as he made his
way toward the front porch.
 
Tamara and
Ashley, Grace’s two stepsisters, were on the porch, along with a handful more
of their friends.

“Are
you with the funeral home?” Ashley asked as soon as Tommy made his way to the
bottom step.

“Ah,
no,” he said.

“Then
who are you?” Tamara wanted to know.

“I’m
Tommy Gabrini and I’m looking for my girlfriend, Grace McKinsey.”

Tamara
and Ashley looked at each other.
 

Nancy,
Grace’s mother, walked up to the screened door from inside the house.
 
“Who’s this?” she asked when she saw Tommy.

“That’s
Grace’s old man,” Ashley said.
 

Nancy
stepped out onto the porch.
 
Tommy began
walking up the steps.
 
Grace favored her,
he thought.
 
“I’m Thomas Gabrini,” he
said as he came.
 
“I was looking for
Grace.”

“You’re
her boyfriend?”

“That’s
right, yes.”

“I’m
her mother,” Nancy said.

“Oh,
it’s very nice to meet you,” Tommy said, extending his hand.
 
Nancy shook it.

“I’m
sure she never mentioned me,” she said.

“She
mentioned you,” Tommy said.

“Funny,
she never mentioned you,” Ashley said and Tamara and their friends grinned.

Tommy
looked at the two young women, and the other ladies on the porch.
 
They seemed juvenile and silly to him.

“Don’t
mind them,” Nancy said.
 
“Come, sit
down.”

Tommy
walked up on the porch, waited for Nancy to take a seat, and then he sat beside
her.
 

“I
see where Grace gets her attractive looks,” Tommy said and Nancy smiled.

“Oh,
you’re a smooth one,” she said.
 
Tommy
laughed.

“Grace
told me about the passing of your husband.
 
I’m sorry for your lost.”

“Thank-you.
 
Ralph was a good man.
 
He’ll be missed.”
 
Then she looked at Tommy.
 
“You live in Seattle, too?”

“Yes,
I do.
 
I was in Australia, however, when
Grace phoned me.”

Nancy
looked at him.
 
“Australia?”

“Yes,
on business.
 
So I came as quick as I
could get here.
 
Unfortunately, it’s an
eighteen, nineteen hour turnaround.”

“Oh,
my.
 
You came a long way.”

Tommy
smiled.
 
“Yes.
 
Is Grace here?”

“They
walked over to the store, but they should be back any minute now.”

“They?”
Tommy asked.

“Yeah,
two of her friends.
 
A man, if you want
to call him a man, and a young lady.
 
They’re from Seattle, too.”

Probably
Jamie and Nayla, Tommy thought, but he didn’t have to think long.
 
Because as soon as he thought it, Grace,
Jamie, and Nayla were coming around the corner.
 
When Grace saw the limo in front of the house, she automatically assumed
it was from the funeral home.
 
But when
she and her friends neared the house, and she saw Tommy sitting on the porch,
she broke out in a sprint.